Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liebhabers verbrannte, K.520

An Chloe, K.524

Giunse alfin il momento…Al desio di chi t’adora (Le Nozze di Figaro)

“That would be an everlasting blot on Germany, if we Germans were seriously to begin to think as Germans, to act as Germans, to speak German and, Heaven help us, to sing in German!!” Although he was exercising his irony on behalf of German opera - in a letter addressed to an ambitious librettist in May 1785 - Mozart must have had similar, if less passionate feelings about German song. Indeed, just a few days after he he wrote that letter he created what, with some over-simplification, could be claimed as the prototype of the Lied in his folksong-style setting of Goethe’s Das Veilchen, K.476. There was nothing systematic in Mozart’s song writing, however. It was always a casual matter for him, the work of an entertaining hour or so, undertaken in many cases to please a particular singer, whose qualities and tastes - rather than any ambition to set an agenda for the future of German song - would determine the choice of the text and the form and style of the setting.

Mozart might well have been amused by the immodest length of the title of Gabriele von Baumberg’s Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liehabers verbrannte (“When Luise burned her false lover’s letters”) and by the poet’s application of high-flown languague to a domestic situation. But it appealed to him above all, it seems, as the basis for a miniature scena for Gottfried von Jacquin, good friend and amateur bass singer. Certainly, it was published with a dedication to Jacquin - only thirteen of Mozart’s thirty songs were published in his lifetime, incidentally - and it is so liberal in its use of operatic devices and dramatic minor harmonies that it could almost be a private joke between singer and composer. An Chloe, on the other hand, which was written a month later, in June 1787, is a delightul little rondo perfectly suited, in its urbane Viennese rather than folksong style, to the artful words of Johann Georg Jacobi.

If Mozart wanted to collaborate with Lorenzo Da Ponte, however, he had no choice but to set Italian words - which never inhibited him and which more often than not, and in this case above all, was a potent source of inspiration for his melodic genius. Indeed, working on Da Ponte’s libretti was so congenial that on at least one occasion he allowed himself to be persuaded into making a dubious artistic decision. This was when Da Ponte’s mistress Adriana Ferrarese del Bene was cast as Susanna in the second Vienna production of Le Nozze di Figaro in 1789 and Mozart replaced Susanna’s original fourth-act aria “Deh vieni, non tardar” with “Al desio di chi t’adora,” which tells us rather more about the singer than the character. The recitative “Giunse alfin il momento” remains the same. The new aria, comparable in style to Per pietà in Così fan tutte - Ferrarese was to be the first Fiordiligi - is a masterful example of bravura Italian word-setting in operatic rondo form.

Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetruen Liebhabers verbrannte

Erzeugt von heisser Phantasie,

In einer schwärmerischen Stunde

Zur Welt gebrachte!

Geht zu Grunde!

Ihr Kinder der Melancholie.

Ihr danket Flammen euer Sein;

Ich geb’ euch nun den Flammen wieder,

Und all die schwärmerischen Lieder;

Denn ach! er sang mir nicht allein.

Ihr brennet nun, und bald, ihr Lieben,

Ist keine Spur von euch mehr hier;

Doch ach! der Mann, der euch geschrieben,

Brennt lange noch vielleicht in mir.

When Luise burned her false lover’s letters

Conceived by a mind on fire,

Brought in an hour of passion

Into the world!

Perish now!

You children of melancholy.

You were brought into being by flames;

I now return you to the flames,

With all his passionate songs;

For oh! he sang not to me alone.

You are burning now, and soon, dear ones,

There will be nothing of you left;

But oh! the man who wrote you,

Could go on burning in me for a long time yet.

An Chloe

Wenn die Lieb’ aus deinen blauen,

Hellen, off’nen Augen sieht,

Und vor Lust, hinein zu schauen,

Mir’s im Herzen klopft and glüht;

Und ich halte dich und küsse

Deine Rosenwangen warm,

Liebes Mädchen, und ich schliesse

Zitternd dich in meinen Arm,

Mädchen, Mädchen, und ich drücke

Dich an meinem Busen fest,

Der im letzten Augenblicke

Sterbend nur dich von sich lässt;

Den berauschten Blick umschattet

Eine düst’re Wolke mir;

Und ich sitze dann ermattet,

Aber selig neben dir.

To Chloe

When love looks out of your

Blue, bright, wide eyes,

And the joy of gazing into them

Makes my heart pound and burn;

And I hold you and kiss

Your warm and rosy cheeks,

Dear maiden, and trembling I

Enfold you in my arms,

Maiden, maiden, and press

You close to my heart,

Which will let you go

Only in its last dying moment;

My swooning gaze is overcast

By a dark cloud;

And then I sit faint

But happy beside you.

Giunse alfin il momento…Al desio di chi t’adora

recitativo:

Giunse alfin il momento

Che godró senza affanno

In braccio all’idol mio; timide cure,

Uscite dal mio petto,

A turbar non venite il mio diletto.

Oh come par che all’amoroso foco

L’amenitá del loco,

La terra e il ciel risponda!

Come la notte i furti miei seconda!

aria:

Al desio di chi t’adora,

Vieni, vola, o mia speranza!

Moriró, se indamo ancora

Tu mi lasci sospirar.

Le promesse, I giuramenti,

Deh! rammenta, o mio tesoro!

E i momenti di ristoro

Che mi face amor sperar!

Ah! ch’omai piú non resisto

All’ardor che il sen m’accende.

Chi d’amor gli affetti intende,

Compatisca il mio penar.